[Report]: Highlights of the GitLab Commit Conference in London, 2019

We are getting ready to say goodbye to everything uncool about 2019. But a few of the DevOps companies are still actively trying to explain their cool plans about the future of the IT industry before we go twenty-twenty. And GitLab Commit 2019 was surely proof of that.

During the recent Commit event in London, the company had
several presentations about the history of their platform, their current status
quo, and their roadmap for the near feature.

In this post of Coding as Creating, therefore, I’ll give you the rundown of what happened in the event.

Introduction Was Obviously About Time!

Sid Sijbrandij, the CEO of GitLab, is not known as a talkative person in the industry. But he tried to push it by starting the conference asking questions about where is everybody from.

It was actually nice to see him engaging with the audience from
the beginning—even though raising hands to his questions made the whole
atmosphere a bit uncomfortable.

However, Sid managed to make a connection between where
the individuals are from and the importance of time! Yes, I know it sounds
strange but he successfully did so, saying, “Thank you for coming from places—near
and far—to be here, we know your time is valuable.”

After that, it was easy for him to bring up the ‘timing’
subject by saying, “speaking of time being valuable… Cycle time compression is
the key to business success” (Not bad Sid, nice try).

So, no matter how amateurish the entrance was, Sid pointed out
a vital matter in the realm of modern DevOps implementations. Cycle time compression
is what separates a successful developmental project from the other sloppy
ones.

But wait; what’s cycle time and how can you
compress it, anyway?

“It’s the time between deciding to do something and getting feedback
from users using that thing in production” Sid claimed. “And cycle time compression
means reducing that time” he pointed out.

So, in short, compression of cycle time happens when you
manage to “reduce the time it takes to ship the software and features to the
users.”

GitLab Wants to Invest in Development & Operations

During his speech about the importance of compressing the cycle time, Sid also pointed out that the DevOps engineer role in the process is a fundamental key.

“[Since] every improvement in a business has to be implemented
in software, your jobs are becoming even more important,” he said.

GitLab, therefore, wants to focus on DevOps engineers to help them achieve cycle time compression and support the companies who want to succeed fast.

“We believe that DevOps is the best way to compress cycle time
while also building a high-quality product” he added before talking about the
GitLab platform.

According to Sid, the company is now offering a completely
DevOps-friendly platform that will help the engineers cut back on time. The
strategy of ‘single-application to manage’ that was first introduced by the
company as a cloud-native CI tool is currently one of the main policies for
millions of developers all around the world.

That’s why the company is determined to expand its territory and
become one of the mainstream parts of the software development process. GitLab
believes that with its latest strategy—which focuses on cycle time compression—any
user will deliver more efficient products in shorter periods.

Sid Sijbrandij‘s presentation in GitLab Commit 2019, London

They Have a Mission to Make You Contribute

After an almost-boring session about the history of the company in this GitLab Commit event, Sid started to talk about their mission. He suggested that the company wants to create more beneficial development, security, and operations teams in the industry.

So, according to him, GitLab will make it easier for people of
the business to contribute by expanding their work field to design, product
management, QA and more.

The company wants to make sure that every person who’s involved
in software development can be a part of their bigger plan. So, their DevOps-friendly
platform will remain open-source, allowing everyone to contribute through modifications.

The Risks Are Paying Off

It was a revolution when almost every tech company started to switch
to cloud-based platforms. However, GitLab was smart enough not to stop there
and look for new areas to grow. So, the company became the first independent DevOps
tool to offer multi-could implementations.

“Workflow portability—which is the second phase of going multi-cloud—offers
the biggest benefits” Sid mentioned in his speech. “it ensures that the compliance
is easier, that you can use the unique capabilities the different clouds offer,
that people can switch teams and still be effective and that you can host
applications in the cloud of your preference.”

So, their first risk (investing in multi-cloud platforms) is now
paying off and they’re the only company to offer such a tool to their users. It
was one of the highlighted moments of the 2019 GitLab Commit event when Sid
explained their success in this novel field.

But that was not going to be the end of the story

According to the young CEO of GitLab, the other risky choice of the company was to acknowledge the importance of Kubernetes and plan for it.

“We think [Kubernetes] is the ticket to multi-cloud for enterprises
because it’s a common interface to the clouds,” he said about this brand-new field
of progressive projects. “It’s also the ticket to reduce cycle time and to
implement DevOps in an organization—but it needs to be in the hands of the developers
for the lasting results.”

In fact, GitLab is happy that their recent investments in this
tool are paying off. So, they are determined to offer more Kubernetes-friendly
services in the future as well.

Security and Development Experts Must Have Access to the Same Data, GitLab Commit Says

As the final part of the company’s first presentation, Sid talked
about the significance of security in modern software development. GitLab
believes that more and more businesses are vulnerable to cyber-attacks during recent
years. And that’s why security must not be a checkbox at the end of the developmental
to-do list.

It’s time to allow the security experts to have access to the same data as the DevOps engineers do to reduce the cycle time. The company thinks that keeping security implementations away from the developmental and operational process holds users back.

So, GitLab allows security and development specialists to
work in the same environment and at the same time.

You can watch the keynotes of the 2019 GitLab Commit event down below.

He is a 24-year-old SEO content writer who has been a part of Coding as Creating since 2018. He has been "writing stuff" since 7; and he's now, obviously, a full-time content writer. Mohsen believes that "words can change the world" [and that's why he's in love with his job!].

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About Mohsen Baqery

He is a 24-year-old SEO content writer who has been a part of Coding as Creating since 2018. He has been "writing stuff" since 7; and he's now, obviously, a full-time content writer. Mohsen believes that "words can change the world" [and that's why he's in love with his job!].